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A review by maedae4
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
As soon as the story starts I can feel that it's looking at gender, and I loved the progression of that throughout. Jojo is working hard, at 13, to be the kind of man that Pop would want him to be. He longs to be as stoic, as straight-spined. Partly because, with his absent parents, he knows that he's going to be the man of the house, and the pressure to provide for Kayla is already very real. But it's hard, because he's a boy who needs nurturance, and he has a real softness to him. His and Pop's understanding of what it means to interact and love each other as men makes the love between them so palpable and yet so unspoken. They have to express it through silences, through slight touches, through distant care and watchfulness. By the end, I think that Jojo's understanding of what it means to be a man morphs a bit as he connects, as a man, to his Pop and supports him through very difficult memories and experiences. There's room for that warmth between them, and Jojo's vast ability as a caretaker and protector equips him to support his loved ones differently than he perhaps thought possible.
Meanwhile, Leonie, in her late twenties, isn't and never has been anything like her mother. She's ambivalent, shifting between a lifelong desire to strike out on her own and be a different person and a lifelong regret that she's not more like her mom, who's nurturing, sensitive, spiritual, wise, and sensually connected to the land. Leonie, on the other hand, is impetuous, self-centered, and impatient. She is unable to see past her sense of unfairness in her life, her anger at the state of things, and her anger at having grown up in a stifling, grief-stricken household. She's also ambivalent about her family--she doesn't want her children and then she just wants them to be easy and agreeable, wants them to respect and love her. She's horrified that Jojo and Kayla raise and comfort each other and that neither of them see her as a parent, horrified that her father is disappointed in her, and all of this adds to her mistreatment of her kids and her reliance on drugs. These character traits don't make Leonie any less of a woman. They just make less of a mother and more of a bad, permanent babysitter.
The family is haunted by the specter of death and danger. Mam is dying slowly and painfully, her spells unable to save her; Pop is haunted by the fact that the only way he could save Richie was to kill him with love in his heart before a white mob got to him; Leonie is haunted by Given's ghost and by the destruction of his potential and the covenant of their friendship. Parchman is a site of racist violence and the perpetuation of slavery. And the real ghosts in the story force me to reconcile with the horrifying possibility that black people who die so violently and suddenly are condemned to live in purgatory on earth, offering more incentive to protect them from such fates. (Jesmyn Ward's rendition of the spirit world is perfectly fluid and dreamlike, bending in ways that protected me from asking overly logical questions.)
Anyway, because I read a library book, I was unable to annotate. Instead, I took many many photos of beautiful passages. I'm not sure I've ever cried so much while reading a book before, and I'm feeling grateful for the chance to have read it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Rape, and Hate crime